EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: Andrew Marr's royal biography will be nothing compared to Andrew Morton's

Snotty: Andrew Marr is a bit too confident that his royal biography will impress

Broadcaster Andrew Marr announces rather snottily that his upcoming biography of the Queen, timed to coincide with her Diamond Jubilee in 2012, ‘is a serious historical book — not some Andrew ­Morton job’. Really? Morton had total access to his subject for his blockbuster Diana: Her True Story. Marr has none we know of to the Queen. A warts-and-all biography of Marr is a more interesting prospect – if the lawyers ever let it appear.

Gorgeous musicians Andrea Corr and her sisters, Sharon and Caroline, are urged to rescue bankrupt Ireland by marrying respectively Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim – despite all three women being wives already. Comic Neil Delamere points out: ‘We have no pre-nup laws so all the girls have to do is marry and divorce taking half their net worth – about $50billion, which is what we need to bail out our banks. Lie back and think of Ireland, girls!’ Simples!

The Government’s clampdown on six-figure salaries for public sector employees hasn’t prevented Kenneth Clarke at the Ministry of Justice offering £100,000 for a new Prisons and Probation Ombudsman for England and Wales. His job ad goes on to reveal: ‘The Ombudsman leads a team of deputies, assistants, investigations and administrative staff that currently totals 117.’ Abolish the lot!

Pack mentality: Pygmies, like this woman, don't like to stand out as individuals and there is nothing wrong with Sir Vidia pointing this out

Writer Sir Vidia Naipaul says in his latest work, The Mask of Africa: ‘It was hard to arrive at a human understanding of the Pygmies, to see them as individuals. Perhaps they weren’t.’ Novelist William Boyd – writing in the Times Literary Supplement – rebukes Sir Vidia for this ‘chilling statement’ about Pygmies. But an American writer, Eliza Griswold, observed in the New York Times: ‘I’ve had the privilege of meeting Pygmies in the eastern Congo. For many of them, the idea of being individuals, and thus separate from their clan, is anathema.’ At 78, the much-honoured Sir Vidia is an obvious target for would-be literary usurpers such as 58-year-old Boyd, who has written a number of books about Africa.

Actor, director and screen villain Steven Berkoff, 73, is known to think well of himself. So he must be disappointed his candid autobiography – Diary of a Juvenile Delinquent, out in September – has caused little fuss. In it he confesses an early preference for ‘frottage’ – rubbing against another person instead of conventional sex – but says he was also able to ‘**** the odd one’. The only review I could find sums up the work thus: ‘He steals a bicycle and goes to borstal; he deals in sweets and ends up in solitary confinement. He fathers a child, gives it up, molests an underage girl, buys a suit and gets a nose job. Finally he is ready to be an actor.’

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Andrew Marr's royal biography will be nothing compared to Andrew Morton's